The Rise of the Citizen Cyclist

Next month, New York City will start rolling out a bike share program that will eventually add 10,000 bikes to the city’s streets. The time may finally have come to get over the idea that biking in New York is for outlaws and renegades.

Next to the people on bikes: Thanks to bike share, bicycles will soon – at last! -- have the official imprimatur of the city as a legitimate mode of public transportation on a level with buses and subways. We can’t pretend any longer that it’s OK to flout the rules of the road because we aren’t recognized as legitimate users of the road.

The Wild West days are over. A bicyclist in New York will be, and should be, increasingly a domestic creature.

I’ve heard a lot of cyclists complaining about being tamed. They don’t like the fact that the new protected bike lanes make you ride more slowly. It used to be so much more exhilarating to pedal up First Avenue with a flock of cabs swooping and honking around you.

Too bad. What cyclists are giving up – death-defying thrills – is nothing compared to what we stand to gain, which is the right to bike in safety. A right that would be exercised by many people who right now are terrified to get on a bike in New York. I say this as someone who has many times ridden that First Avenue rodeo on an adrenaline high.

Being accepted as a legitimate member of society means learning better manners. Yes, I'm talking about stopping at red lights and stop signs and riding in the direction of traffic. Transportation Alternatives’ Biking Rules campaign, which emphasizes both bikers’ rights and their responsibilities, is a good place to start. I’m hoping, and expecting, that the bike share kiosks will have clear and comprehensive rules of the road posted in several languages.

In the past few years, New York has become a national leader in urban transportation policy by redesigning streets and taking back space for bikes and pedestrians. With the advent of the nation’s biggest bike share program, the city could radically change the way that Americans see bicycles as public transportation. But unless police and courts start treating drivers and bike riders equally, we’ll be going nowhere fast.